Fatal Frame: The Black Haired Shrine Maiden Revealed For Wii U

Koei Tecmo producer Keisuke Kikuchi made an appearance during the NicoNico Live Fatal Frame series stream to talk about the latest of the upcoming new game on Wii U, which was revealed as Fatal Frame: The Black Haired Shrine Maiden [零 ～濡鴉ノ巫女～ Zero ~Nuregarasu no Miko].

The concept of the game comes from a “Japanese-style” horror, which will revolve around Japanese buildings, using cameras, and the fear of “getting wet”.

It takes place in a big mountain that has a big lake and graves. According to Kikuchi, it seems like we’ll be seeing a lot of damp areas, and quite the scary figures, like traditional Japanese ghost girls who appears completely drenched in water.

The protagonist Yuri Kozukata has an ability she’s had since childhood, where she can bring those who’ve been “spirited away” to another realm and no longer visible, back to the regular world. After accepting a request to find a certain someone, she steps foot into the mountain that the game is set in.

The Wii U GamePad will have a camera feature that shows things that you normally can’t see with your eyes, and it will also be used as some sort of weapon that can be used while facing enemies.

The story unfolds the mysterious events that occurs in this mysterious mountain. During the trailer, it showed Yuri watching a girl slit her throat, only to have her disappear… followed by a mysterious figure appear right behind Yuri.

Fatal Frame: The Black Haired Shrine Maiden will be released on September 27, 2014 in Japan.

It was short. It’s still going now but it’s mostly about the cross-promotion stuff like the movie and manga atm.

EDIT: apparently Fatal Frame is also getting a Hollywood movie. So now I’m curious if a localization is more plausible now.

lyhthegreat .

i thought it was already getting a movie which is coming out in japan pretty soon??

kratoscar2008

The question is if it will reach western shores, anyways i havent touched this series and i would like to know if they follow a crhonological order. Is FF 2 a good standalone tittle? Just got it.

lyhthegreat .

yeah and its by far the best game in the series imo.The games are sorta link to one another like but u dun need to play the rest to know whats going on.

kratoscar2008

So its a direct sequel but not related?

lyhthegreat .

yes,its just that there are some returning characters like miku from ff1 appearing in ff3 and also there are mentions of the twins in ff2 in an article so unless you wanna know more about these characters,you dun have to play them all in sequence.personally i started with ff2 then ff3 and went back to ff1 before playing ff4.

kratoscar2008

Great thanks for the info.

lyhthegreat .

wow that’s fast,they release the game 2 months after they first showed the trailer??i hope it really makes it to the us

s07195

This means that this was revealed late in development in contrast to games which get revealed early on.

So this is sort of like the Sixth Sense? It’s not that the protagonist sees dead people necessarily… she just has the ability to “find the truth behind an item’s history” and happens to be on a mountain with a bloody history and a lot of graves.

I’d kind of prefer to do without the supernatural history vision contrivance, but it seems like it gets us to a familiar spot either way. Japanese girl all alone surrounded by ghosts.

Shippoyasha

Fatal Frame has originally been made to capitalize on the ‘ghost photography/video’ that was all the rage in Japan during early 2000s (and well, ever since) at the time, and they wanted to put that into a game form.

The Camera Obscura system has always been a hallmark of the series and I actually think the series did an amazing job with the storytelling as well. They do rely on some supernatural lore and items, but it fits in well with the stories they try to tell.

Ethan_Twain

Oh yeah, Fatal Frame is cool. I played a little bit of one of them (3 maybe?), I liked it well enough. Not usually a horror guy, but it was clearly well made and creepy. Voices were stilted but hey, this is the company that brought us Dynasty Warriors voice acting.

I just feel like this premise might be unnecessarily complicated. The end goal is you need to end up with a Japanese girl all alone with a camera and a bunch of ghosts. They’re going with a mountain setting with graveyards, swamps, and old buildings. And a bunch of ghosts. Great. A+. That’s all that’s needed.

What I don’t want is bunch of content about the protagonist growing up with her history vision power, technicalities about when it works and when it doesn’t work, or a plot that revolves around her as the chosen one. The one person with the magic power to help put these souls to rest. Don’t need any of that, don’t want any of that. Girl. Ghosts. Camera. Creepy. Don’t explain everything.

The reason for optimism is that Nintendo is involved in this production and if anyone will mandate that unnecessary plot gets cut out, it’s them. Nothing kills a good horror game like a bunch of exposition.

Shippoyasha

Well, Fatal Frame’s lore is pretty beefy stuff and like Silent Hill and other good horror lore, there’s stuff to mull over once the game is finished. I actually think the storytelling element is kind of underappreciated with this series because it delivers the spooks so well.

Serge

Silly nintendo, how do you expect me to hold the gamepad if you are scaring the shat out of me?

Tylor Boreas Makimoto

Said the same thing with Spirit Camera.

We all know how THAT turned out.

Go2hell66

i know this gets spammed in every other article but…

ENGLISH RELEASE PLZ!

Kyle Bue

PLEEEEEAAAAASE let it come to America! We miss Fatal Frame!!! :,(

lyhthegreat .

yea,this close to 9-years absence of fatal frame in the us is driving me crazy lol

Kyle Bue

The closest thing we got to a new Fatal Frame since the third one was Spirit Camera…….. yea…..

Mrgrgr and Unacceptable World

Well, Europe did get, FF2 Remake though.^_^

Hunter Wynn

This is the closest that we get to Pokémon Snap on the Wii U.

TheSegaMan

Why is everyone saying this won’t come state side? Nintendo made it pretty clear that they plan on localizing a lot more games and horror games have become popular again thanks to games like Amnesia. It wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t localized.

idrawrobots

They would pretty much have to do more than just this one to really justify doing this one.

kratoscar2008

That and Nintendo cant really affort to keep games in Japan considering third parties dont give a crap about supporting the console.

Nanashrew

Tecmo also kept acknowledging the western fans throughout the stream and kept bringing up Fatal Frame, rather than its Japanese name, Zero. Like here http://i.imgur.com/ZrH0r1u.jpg

lyhthegreat .

wow,seems like theres a reason for them to put out the english title of the game like this,looks like good news to me.

Ricardo C

They were talking about the American film

Ricardo C

They were talking about the American Fatal Frame film. What you see on screen says “Hollywood Film: FATAL FRAME”. Its apparently gonna be directed by the person who did the Resident Evil films.

kylehyde

Did the persons in charge didn’t even make a research about all director avaliable on hollywood? Why not Guillermo del Toro? He is talented, he loves sci-fi and horror and certainly he loves Japan (Pacific Rim is the ultimate nerd/otaku Hollywood movie).

Ricardo C

I have no idea. He intends to make the American film better than the Japanese version coming out in 2 months.

kylehyde

Hold a moment,I think that didn’t elaborate well my comment. I was trying to say that I wish that the Fatal frame producers would put the project of the american fatal frame on Guillermo del Toro hands instead of the guys that they selected (the resident evil producers), not that del Toro was going to make it.

Ash_Riot

Well, in a way that makes it more likely they’re bringing it to the West too then, if you think about it: why else release a Hollywood movie and not release the game to go with it?

Ricardo C

Thats what I hope would happen. It just seems like the right timing to localize a game because there is finally something to go along with the series.

PS: You get awesome points cuz your avi is from Persona 2 Eternal Punishment (my favorite game in the series along with Innocent Sin)

lyhthegreat .

yea,it seems like tk is putting in effort in trying to get most of their games localized but i hope the abysmal sales of the spirit camera would not would discourage them from doing so..

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

They aren’t crazy, dude. I highly doubt they put the fate of the entire Fatal Frame franchise in the hands of Spirit Camera.

Ash_Riot

Well that’s what SEGA did with the last Yakuza released in English, but still TecmoKoei have been really good with their localizations, pretty much bringing almost everything they can to English speaking territories. The fact that Deception IV, of all games, got a localization for both PS3 and Vita means I think Fatal Frame V will more than likely happen.

Richard N

Simply the fact that the fourth entry never came our way and neither did the Crimson Butterfly remake has me worried. But I have pretty decent hope this one will see a western release with the way Nintendo’s been operating lately.

Unlimax

I think The English trailer is coming sooner you thought guys

Tom

If anything, this game could benefit from the Wii U controller. I hope they’ll nail the controls and will translate the game in english (not like with that other Zero game we didn’t get…)

The translation of the title is completely wrong, FYI. The title in Japanese essentially translates to “Zero ~ Wet Crow Maiden”. Makes more sense considering the game is about the fear of water as well as the lady with the crow/tengu mask featured in the trailer.

Edit: changed the translation to something that makes a bit more sense in English.

Sato

“Wet crow” is another way to describe black hair in Japanese. Also, the “crow/tengu” mask lady doesn’t look anything like a crow. And I don’t think the game is about her being wet, either :P

lord_of_flood

It might be a play on words too. The game in general revolves around water, damp environments, and Japanese chicks… well, “getting wet”. :P

Not necessarily that the crow lady herself (which that headdress definitely has features that resemble a crow) is getting wet.

Sato

Yeah, it could be, but we’re just going to go with black hair since we don’t exactly know whether it has anything to do with a crow, (even if her hairpiece somewhat looks like one or not.) And the term “Nuregarasu” is more often used to describe hair, rather than a wet crow.

sakiu

Hmm isn’t “Wet crow” more of a deep black glossy colour, a colour of a crow who has wet feathers. I also guess that its a word play seeing as the story revolves around water. but it indeed should be translated to Black haired instead of Wet Crow.

If a really obscure game like Tomodachi Life was localized, I don’t see how this game won’t be.

Daniel Jeanbaptiste

you mean games like Bayonetta 2 and Devil Third Nintendo of America isnt playing around with localization now. Every Wii U game almost all of Nintendo’s 3ds games are localized.

revenent hell

whelp Wii U… Its almost time to buy you..

SakuStar Light

<.< almost u should have one now…thats Blasphemy talking lol

Princess_Eevee9

Burn da heathen!

Ricardo C

Actually, Fatal Frame and Smash are my only reason of getting a Wii-U in the first place. The Wii didn’t do much for me ether. I wasn’t interested in many Wii games during that time.

Mika Moreno

I still need to get one, I’m most likely getting it for Christmas though. Mainly for Zelda U, Smash, and now this :P

revenent hell

Well my main incentive was xenoblade chronicles X… this was my main reason for buying one

neocatzon

Featuring (Japan’s creepy) mermaid as cameo.

Princess_Eevee9

Oh wow I was wondering about this title.

Mrgrgr and Unacceptable World

The art style as usual looks really nice.^_^ And these time, the environment is one whole mountain? Boy, not only the area is getting huge, it seems, we are going to be able to get lost easier now.T_T

The fear is creeping me here.T_T

Tincho Kudos

Man, this is gonna be released this year?! S-W-E-E-T!
And this is the game I was hoping for when the U’s was announced. Now I only need a Trauma Center, make it happen Atlus!

Yan Zhao

Glad the Wii U is finally getting some good exclusives.

Satori Satya

I was glad since last year

Daniel

Seriously The Wonderful 101 its what people say they want (new) but their purchasing patterns say otherwise. Oh well i bought it and enjoy games like it hopefully this game makes it west

Göran Isacson

Huh, getting wet… one wonders if perhaps hypothermia will play a role in the game? Or if descending into water makes it easier for ghosts to track and attack you, so you will walk supercareful in order to not step in puddles or have to wade through waist-high water, lest the ghosts strike from unfathomable depths. That could be kinda creepy.

Satori Satya

Remember JAWS? When that movie first came out, people in real life avoided the beach. Or in other words, getting wet.

Göran Isacson

Well yeah, but so far we haven’t really been given much of a reason to fear giant sea monsters in Fatal frame. I was thinking that the connection between the water and us fearing it would be a little less on the nose…

… AAAAND now I’m imagining that one of the enemies in the game will be a ghost shark. NOW I’m terrified.

Snorlaxation

Also reminds me of the Galochio curse from Psychonauts. Whenever you got in deep enough water… watch out.

Aristides

hehehehehe her name is Yuri and she has a fear of getting wet hehehe it’s too bad Marvelous or Compile Heart aren’t making this game XDXDXD just kidding, really glad this got announced. Hopefully I’ll have a WiiU by the time this comes out in the west.

Dkmariolink

Lol, you dirty, dirty hentai.

SaiyanJedi_Trunks

Now this is the type of game that needs to be released in the West. Japanese Horror with a great planned implementation for the gamepad. With the awesome titles coming to the West this year this would be icing for someone wanting a Wii U.

Those are REALLY bad news…well, I still can enjoy Deception saga till they buy it as well LOL…

Fanboyism is horrible, and as for nintendo it gets worse. I love every console because every console has good games. The problem is when you force people to play the way you want, then every game turns shit, like it or not, I don’t care, thus is the truth.

Dkmariolink

Whats your problem?

Tylor Boreas Makimoto

Pretty sure Nintendo owns part of the franchise, so … Yeah, that’ll happen.

PreyMantis

Sucks to be a fanboy, huh?
*ROFL*

FlobotingIt

This really frustrates me, because I know I’m going to have to get a Wii U now… I mean, I’m happy that there’s a new Fatal Frame, but… Ugh. It wouldn’t be so bad if they had released a normal FF game on 3DS instead of that AR garbage… Oh well… Just take my money, Tecmo and Nintendo!

Kaetsu

Buying a Wii U is worth it. Trust me, you won’t regret your purchase.

Volta

I like a lot the Fatal Frame games, but I hate that they always portrait
overly delicate and annoyingly dumb characters and protagonist. I’ll
play this for sure nonetheless.

lel

about time we get a real horror game on wii u! zombie u felt pretty meh.

https://twitter.com/BinksFrost Binks5

oh how very interesting id like to see the use of gamepad in this

Seth Rich

Well, I’m confused. Unless I missed something here this is the first time they revealed the game and it’s coming out in two months time in Japan? I personally don’t see that happen often. I honestly still want Fatal Frame four to come here. If Nintendo decides to publish this in the west and I have no clue why they wouldn’t, they should pull a Bayonetta and package that game with this one, though I don’t see that happening for various reasons.

And for the love of Love Giant, don’t call it Spirit Camera 2 or something!

Well guess the Wii U will be my 1st current gen system, have no interest in all the games on Wii U except: Bayonetta 2, Xenoblade X, SSB(only because i want to play as Robin), and now i am interested in Fatal Frame. Going to wait to see if there is a announcement for localisation. I’ll buy Wii U once all the games come out no point in buying it and waiting for the games i want to come out.
Also the only system that i have no interest in is Xbox1 mostly because it has no exclusive games that i want unlike PS4 or Wii U.
Anyways excited for this game love the Fatal Frame series.

http://iron2000.blogspot.com/ iron2000

Wonder if it will link to the previous games?
Also the game releases one day after the live-action movie which also features water imagery.

lol, will Fatal Frame ever go the open-world concept?
Or is the genre more suited to be in a more restricted design?

Ric Vazquez

My body is ready…to be scared shitless.

No Wonder

The protagonist named Yuri Kozukata looks like Misaki Asou in Fatal Frame 4 ^^ I LOVE THEM ^^

Kyle Bue

So sure of yourself, eh? I ain’t giving up hope!

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